... That's about as far as I can manage at the moment (and I hope I haven't mangled it too much!) I read about Toki Pona in a Guardian Online article, and thought I'd give it a try. I'm using memrise's "Toki Pona Complete" course to learn the vocab - I've got about 50 words in so far, and I hope to stick with it.

I think I've got an OK handle on sentence structure, but is there a resource you'd recommend for learning how to construct sentences? Does one of the other memrise courses cover it? Knowing the vocab is well and good, but not very helpful if I can't string it together!

... That's about as far as I can manage at the moment (and I hope I haven't mangled it too much!) I read about Toki Pona in a Guardian Online article, and thought I'd give it a try. I'm using memrise's "Toki Pona Complete" course to learn the vocab - I've got about 50 words in so far, and I hope to stick with it.

I think I've got an OK handle on sentence structure, but is there a resource you'd recommend for learning how to construct sentences? Does one of the other memrise courses cover it? Knowing the vocab is well and good, but not very helpful if I can't string it together!

"mi kama li sona pi toki pona." means "I' come and I am the wisdom of Toki Pona." A "li" is a seperator between any subject except "mi" and "sina" and its verb. But, If you use a second verb phrase with "mi" or "sina", you need "li". So "kama" is the first verb phrase and "sona pi toki pona" the second.Because "pi" is for complex nouns, your second verb phrase start with a noun ("wisdom").

I think you mean "mi kama sona e toki pona." "e" is a seperator before a direct object.

pona!jan Lopehttps://jan-lope.github.io(Lessons and the Toki Pona Parser - A tool for spelling, grammar check and ambiguity check of Toki Pona)

On my foe list are the sockpuppets janKipo and janSilipu because of permanent, rude spamming.

Thanks for the link to your lessons, and the correction on my mangled phrases!

Let me try to understand the second one. I can see that my first attempt is wrong. Would I be right in saying that "mi kama li sona" could be read as "my approach knows"? But "sona pi toki pona" - "knowledge of Toki Pona" - can't really be read as a verb phrase, so "mi kama li sona pi toki pona" can't be (mi kama) li (verb), so it must be two verbs on 'mi'?

janChowlett wrote:jan Lope o, toki!Would I be right in saying that "mi kama li sona" could be read as "my approach knows"? But "sona pi toki pona" - "knowledge of Toki Pona" - can't really be read as a verb phrase, so "mi kama li sona pi toki pona" can't be (mi kama) li (verb), so it must be two verbs on 'mi'?

toki a! I'll see if I can offer some additional help. I know Lope just answered this but this is in case you need a little extra detail.

First thing's first - make sure you know for certain where your adjectives/modifiers are at. By that, I mean that you suggested "mi kama li sona" as "my approach knows". It could be a simple thing you looked over, but know that "mi kama" is not "my approach" - that would be more like "kama mi". Remember, the order of adjectives/modifiers is backwards to English in this sense. That's why we have "toki pona" (good-speak) and not "pona toki" (speech's goodness? good in a manner of speech?). The first word is your main word (e.g. cat), and the following word adds more information (e.g. black > cat black). So, "kama mi li sona" is "my approach knows", while "mi kama li sona" is "I come and know" as you'd assume there's an invisible "li" after the "mi" (note: with "li" between them, "kama" and "sona" are two completely separate verbs here, so it's not like using "kama sona" or "wile sona" or the likes).

Hope that clears that teeny bit up for you. It looks like you understand "mi kama sona e toki pona" fine Just in case, here's a more detailed explanation of "mi kama e sona pi toki pona" as well:mi (I - noun) [invisible li] kama (come, cause, bring about, etc - verb) e (now anything after this "e" is gonna be a noun, you're done with the verbs) sona (knowledge - noun) pi toki pona (gonna simplify it: "of toki pona" - modifies sona). "I cause knowledge of Toki Pona". Approaching would suggest movement, and you can't really move towards knowledge in a sense, because it's abstract and you're not really walking over to a physical thing. This is where you have to think about what something really means and if it makes any sense outside of English. Things like this do appear a little bit in the community (e.g. "jo" is used for quite a lot of things other than what you literally have in your hand) but it's recommended to try and filter them out where possible. As another example of this, if I said "it's raining cats and dogs" in Toki Pona, it'd sound strange to anyone who speaks a different native language that doesn't have that same expression (cats and dogs falling from the sky? Bah!).

Gah, I hope all that ranting helped you at least a little. Make sure that you read either Lope's lessons, or Pije's (here: http://tokipona.net/tp/janpije/learn.php) or something else if you find it so you get the structure and I hope you have fun with the language!! If you need any help whatsoever, just leave a comment on this forum. When you know TP properly, be sure to join the facebook group at facebook.com/groups/sitelen as we all love seeing new faces!

jan Aetherstar x jan Mali o sina poka ala poka tawa jan AetherCrux x jan Astrodonut?kin la, one thing to point out about 'pi toki pona' is that the 'pi' is there because 'toki pona' is two words that go together to make the modifier.I pass over in despair ever getting anyone to do 'nimi mi li ...' right (pu for starters). Suffice to say, introduce yourself with 'mi jan ...' and avoid the pakala en nasa en lon ala. 'Sole'? '

Thanks for your help. I don't know why the adjective order hadn't stuck, it's actually pretty straightforward - although I tend to forget whether "pot plant green" is a green pot for a plant, or a pot for a green plant.

Anyway, let's have a bit more practice. I'll put what I'm trying to say in brackets, so you can tell me just how far off I am!

"about" has been an ongoing problem for years. We have talking/thinking about in hand ('toki/pilin e ijo x') but not in general. Fragments are a pin, too, since they don't seem to have rules. Being a coward, I use full forms. 'mi toki mute e ijo mi.' or some such. tp cheats a bit and uses the same proper adjective for languages, countries, people and Lord knows what all else. So, 'ma Inli, jan ' Inli, toki Inli' but pu uses 'ma Juke'. However, you need to connect the 'ma Juke' with the 'ma Inli' somehow. I think just putting in a 'lon' does it (but maybe 'pi lon'). The rest is fine, but the last says "If (or when) I have money, I write control language of computers" (don't need 'wawa' unless this is a Cray or some such). You probably want something like 'mi pali e ni:' and then as before "I do/ work at this:"